Dilation and Morale

Local time: Monday 6.16pm

D left for Melbourne on Sunday morning after we had one last commemorative dinner at the same corner store we visited on the first night. It's been fantastic having him here not only helping out when I've been less able, but also generally for moral support and his terrific friendship. Thanks so much, D!

I know some people will be thinking this, so let me just make it very clear that beyond the fact that it involves genitalia, there's nothing at all sexual about dilation. A dilator is a hard, cold, unfriendly device where the only thing accommodating about it is that it happens to be tapered rather than a straight cylinder. It's lined with measurement strokes for depth, not unlike something out of a chemistry lab (and one assumes that the tick marks have even been calibrated). Its purpose is to stretch skin beyond comfortable extents. Putting a condom on one isn't for fun - it's so it doesn't abrade the skin graft inside the neovagina and tear something. Slathering it with obscene amounts of lube is so it doesn't hurt going in. And the very act of dilation isn't titillating - it's tedious, boring (you're just lying there, and have to read a book or do something else to pass the time), time consuming, and quite frankly at this point in my recovery, laborious due to the involvement of multiple stages of disinfectant and cleaning up that have to be done while movement is still uncomfortable.

I've been dilating twice a day for an hour at a time, and well, it's a pain in the arse (almost literally). But I've been trying to be diligent about it, because dilation really does make the difference between a successful SRS procedure and an unsuccessful one. While I was managing 7 inches at maximum depth earlier though, yesterday and today I've only been able to reach 6 inches before applying any more pressure to the end of the dilator became seemingly uncomfortable/inappropriate.

Today I saw Dr Suporn for a checkup, in which he made clear that going from 7 inches to 6 inches in the first week is not a good result. He suggested that at 6 inches, I should try to alter the angle of the dilator to achieve that last half inch, which is more of an expected depth at this stage. I guess I'll be attempting a few different things this evening when I dilate.

He also went over the two places in my labia where the stitches have prematurely opened and said he'd have no problem closing them by the time we were to leave. Minor cosmetic things, but nice to know they don't pose a problem to fix.

While that's good news, I think today I just feel like it's yet another thing which still needs to be addressed, along with resuming hormones (I'm wary of starting them right now while still not quite completely active and on a cocktail of other medication which is already leaving me drowsy during waking hours), general healing (it'd be nice not to wince whenever the hotel elevator reaches ground floor), and regaining my dilation depth.

It isn't helping that my energy levels during the day really aren't fantastic right now, and D isn't around to bolster my spirits. I have this expectation that getting back on estrogen is going to make me feel better but I don't know how realistic/healthy it is to be thinking like that.

Oh well, one thing at a time. Chin up, soldier on!